Day 2 - Going Strong!!

With such an enormous amount of stuff to be learned, there are a million reasons to thank God for being patient with us.

Day 2

Today is an extremely special day in the Loness household!  6 years ago today, we began dating.  5 years ago today, we said "heck ya!" or, as normal people would say, "I do"

To say that this is one of the absolute best days of my life is an understatement.  It is also extremely fitting to think that God sat back and was patient with me, instead of giving up on me.

Some background - I spent most of my 20's living my life for me and me alone.  I was drinking HEAVILY, running wild, and would even go so far to say that God didn't exist.  I won't bore you with the details, because honestly I don't live there anymore - and THAT is the point!

After an awesomely amazing life changing God encounter (which is a whole other blog post, so you will just have to take my word for it... sorry...) I started living my life for God.  I went back to church for the first in May of 2010.

What I didn't realize (and this is why I KNOW that God was being patient with me...) is that Brandon was in the background also being patient with me... He can tell you the date, time, sermon, what I was wearing, where I sat, who I was with, and every single detail of the first Sunday he saw me.

In August of 2012, we became Facebook friends.  Just chatting back and forth, commenting on each other's posts and such.  Finally, after a few weeks of this, I messaged him.  We joke that our song is "Call me Maybe" because the message I sent basically said "hey, I don't mean to sound like that song, but here is my number so call me... sometime"  or something to that effect.  The rest is history.

You are probably asking yourself "why did you guys wait so long to become friends, etc." well... I don't have a good answer for that, other than the fact that had we met before 2012, Brandon may not have liked me much.  I was still working on getting sober, I was still working through some depression, and the last thing on my mind was a relationship.  God was doing an amazing restoration work in me, and a relationship before the perfect moment would only prove to be a bad idea (believe me, I tried... and I was for sure not ready!)

We hung out at a friend's birthday bonfire (which has a hysterical story of me giving horrible directions, and Brandon showing up anyway!) and the following weekend, we decided to give it a try.  I had started pouring my guts out to Brandon, filling him on my life and where I had been with God.  He said that he had no plans of going anywhere, really liked me and would be patient. 

We started dating 11/02/2012.  We got engaged 12/25/2012.  We were married 11/02/2013.

This is where I believe God was patient with me... There were times when I tried to rush ahead of God's perfect plan and tried to "date" - even had a live in boyfriend that obviously didn't work out at all!  I tried to rush ahead of the perfect plan and tried to move to Texas - obviously that wasn't in the works either.  So many things I would try to push ahead of the plan and it would blow up in my face.  Finally, I started to pray "Bring me the person you made for me" and stopped trying so hard.  No, I just stopped trying. Period.  I started trying to focus on loving myself and becoming the person I needed to be.  And then the friend request from Brandon came in.

We probably could have started dating sooner, but I was being stubborn and was trying to stick to the "focus on me, obviously I need to be single for now"

Here we are, 6 years later and I know that God made Brandon for me and me for him!  I am honestly not sure what the definition of a "Perfect Marriage" is, but if you asked me my definition, I would tell you it's ours!  We are friends, we love each other in spite of our faults, we are weird together, we have fun together... I can't really explain it.  He makes me better, and he says I make him better.

If you are in a place where you feel like God is stretching you and growing you, but you are trying to do other things, just stop and give Him a chance!  God has amazing things in store for you!

I had to learn a million little lessons before I could make even a half way decent wife.  Ask anyone I previously dated... they will tell you that I was not a good partner to have...  That all changed when I started trying to become a better person, get sober, and remember that marriage of any kind is not a self serving thing.

I don't even want to go into the things I have had to learn in order to be a mom... whew!!

With such an enormous amount of stuff to be learned, there are a million reasons to thank God for being patient with us.

What can you thank God for being patient with you for?